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Customers Creating Fake Amazon Pages To Get Cheap Electronics At Walmart
turkeydance writes People are reportedly creating fake Amazon pages to show fake prices on electronics and other items. In the most heavily publicized cases, Walmart was reportedly duped into selling $400 PlayStation 4 consoles for under $100. From the article: "The company announced on Nov. 13 that it would price-match select online retailers, including Amazon.com. However, any Amazon member with a registered selling account can create authentic looking pages and list items 'for sale' online. Consumers need only take a screen capture of the page and show it to a cashier at checkout in order to request the price match."
Clever crooks. Always finding the loopholes. This is why we can't have nice things.
Presumably walmart will immediately be limiting this to items only sold and shipped directly by amazon... or they'll drop amazon matching entirely if that's too complicated for their staff.
Retail stores have a hard time changing prices as prices signs and labels are regulated by state law... Amazon can very easily change the price in cookie-based pages. I'm not sure why Wal-Mart thinks they can price match when that happens.
WalMart's already wised up, and changed the rules. Now it only applies to items on Amazon SOLD BY Amazon. No more marketplace sellers.
http://consumerist.com/2014/11...
There's "gaming the system" and there's fraud. This isn't clipping Home Depot coupons and taking advantage of Lowe's willingness to accept competitor coupons. This is forging your own Home Depot coupons on your computer, printing them out, and using them at Lowe's, since you know that Home Depot won't accept the forgeries.
Interesting, but in the summary they don't say anything about forgeries, they talk about people with amazon seller accounts creating sales in order to have them matched. That is nothing at all like your example. In fact, your example looks to me like an intentional fraud; it claimed to have a relevant point, and even had the form of a point, but didn't match the accusation at all.
It is fraud if you create a web page purely to deceive Walmart into giving you a discount on a product you had no intention of selling for the price.
It is deeply dishonest, and there is no other excuse for that behaviour.
This is great news, glad some savvy consumers "abused the system." Price-matching guarantees, far from being made to help the consumer, are actually economic game theory made to preserve a store's sales. Example:
1. You are shopping for an item in a store, but discover that it is priced better elsewhere. If the store has no price match, you will leave and obtain the item elsewhere. The store loses sales because it is not as economically efficient as its competitors, and goes out of business. The free market marches on and we all feel good.
2. You shop in a store, and discover that the item is priced better elsewhere, but the store offers a "price match." You take it, thinking ha! I just got the item for the real "lowest price," and didn't even have to leave!
But what happens in #2? Oligopoly through game theory. Every retailer has a "price-match" policy, and they all know each others' prices. No retailer will drastically drop the price, because they know that they can divide and conquer by just keeping the prices the same. Why would you drop your price if you knew if those customers who knew better can get it at your competitor?
Meanwhile, while YOU may have gotten the lowest market price through the price match, less savvy consumers pay the higher "sticker" price. If #1 had been allowed to play out, the overpriced seller would have gone out of business, leaving only the superior merchant. EVERY consumer would then benefit from the lowest price, because the inefficient merchant would be gone, replaced by others.
Conclusion: These price-matching schemes are anti-competitive, and some customers took advantage of it. While they might not have known it, they are prime examples of using arbitrage to uncover bad policies and mispricing by the market. If I walked up to a cashier and said "can I buy that Playstation for $90?" they would say no. But if I say "your competitor is selling it for $90, give me a Playstation!" how is that any different? They can still say no, but they don't because their management is desparate to keep you in their store.
Alternately, these might be Wal-Mart employees who've figured out how earn more than $15/hr by taking a cut of the fake savings, without appearing overtly guilty. At least, you for one are eager to assume they're too dumb to be guilty, which is probably true of their bosses also.
Fry's has a simple system for this.
1. You tell the sales associate (it's not done at the checkout counter) what site you want them to match.
2. They check it against the list of sites that they are willing to match.
3. They go to the site on their computer, and look it up.
4. They print an invoice that you take to the counter with your purchase.
5. BTW, they have incentive to do this, because they get something any time they print an invoice. I don't know the details, but it would be dumb for Fry's to withhold whatever the reward is just because it was a price match. So, anytime somebody at Fry's is actually helpful (rare, I know, but sometimes happens...) don't balk when they want to print an invoice!
You don't get away with just showing them your screen.
You can show them a screen, from the web or some price-search app, and then they will go to their own browser to look it up.
After all, when your employer pays you terribly, why do you care? Reject the idea, customer complains to your manager. Who is also, may not be the brightest star in the constellation, who may discipline/fire you.
Also? Average wage at WalMart: $8/hr (weekly: 8*8=64 * 5 days=$320). Which means, pulling this once and reselling the console is almost a week's pay. Taking $300 from WalMart, whose family owns more money than the bottom 42% of the US combined to feed your family doesn't seem like the most heartless crime in the world.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
These are the same Walmart employees who think they're worth fifteen bucks an hour?
This is getting off topic, but minimum wage in the US has taken a big hit due to inflation. At the very least if compared to the 1960's the current minimum wage needs to be about $11/hr in order to have the same buying power.
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Create Web page with deeply discounted console.
Buy 3, or more PS/4 From Walmart.
Sell one for the advertised price--making it not fraud.
Sell another for 3x the price you advertised the first one at.
Keep one for yourself.
Profit!
In the stock market its called short selling.
Walmart was not obliged to sell other than by it's own actions... They could have challenged it or otherwise...
It's actions were made on the intent of beating it's competitors and this backfired... Only consumers really need to be protected from their own stupidity and ignorance - Corporations are big enough to make their own miscalculations and live with the consequences.
caveat venditor would be more appropriate -
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
It is complete and utter fraud, no ifs or buts. The intention of the fake listing is purely to defraud Walmart. This is not a shades of grey situation, it is straight out criminal behavior that should see them if caught be prosecuteded